Guardian: Railspeak should be terminated

[JamieLei]

There's an interesting article today about the language used on trains and in stations. Well worth a read even if the whole thing is rather petty to begin with.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mind-yo ... n-language

Several of the points I agree with, such as "station stop" (always hated that word). The substitution of passengers for customers also annoys me - the idea probably is to remind staff and passengers that they're paying for the journey and thus haver various standards to expect but it's still a bit odd, if not annoying. And I can't help but cringe after leaving London Euston each time as the announcements take as far as Harrow and Wealdstone to complete when I'm trying to sleep or do some work.

I know it annoys some members but I'll briefly compare to Japan. Firstly one-man operation in Japan is quite rare, even on the subway lines, and thus the guard probably feels obliged to spend at least 10% of the journey time talking into the microphone. Unfortunately where announcements are recorded (about 50% of commuter rail and all subways), they're also often in English aswell and it takes bloody ages to get through them since even in one language they take longer than in Britain to complete. I suppose Mr David Marsh should count himself lucky that he's not "politely requested to use an Oyster Card" and then be told again in French each time he's between Waterloo and Clapham Junction...

[JGR]

I was in London today, and the stream of PA noise was unending.
On the upside/downside (delete as appropriate) though was that much of it was inaudible, due to mumbling, echoes or just being absurdly quiet.
Most of the announcements were of the forms:
"X is delayed/cancelled due to EXCUSE. We are very sorry for the delay to this service/disruption to your journey" (you're so sincere)
"COMPANY would like to apologise for Y" (just get me my train!)
"Professional thieves are operating in and around this station" (as opposed to un-British amateur thieves)
"[Stuff about smoking]" (we know that)

At Liverpool Street, every platform allocation is announced, along with every calling point. Then every late train is announced, several times (which was every train).

The one time that a string of announcements would have been helpful, was at Cannon Street, when all traffic was stopped on the whole mainline, and people were just stood there like lemons in the station entrance, causing a huge crowd jam. Nothing useful was announced before I just walked off to Monument instead :\

I'm not too fussed about the actual vocabulary though, as long as it is clear and unambiguous it doesn't matter if it is unduly pompous.

Enumerating everything that the buffet car sells is annoying though. I'm not going to buy any of it. Even if you keep trying to tempt/remind me.

[Badger]

You'd be suprised at the number of complaints when things aren't announced fully, you forget about the massive number of spoon-fed morons that use our railways.
It's my job to provide this information to punters and it annoys me that we have to announce "Mind the gap between the train and the platform edge" every 15 mins. Well duh!!
I could rant about this for ages and it appears standards differ between each TOC and Network Rail, but while there's morons, announcements will persist.

[61653]

You'd be suprised at the number of complaints when things aren't announced fully, you forget about the massive number of spoon-fed morons that use our railways.
It's my job to provide this information to punters and it annoys me that we have to announce "Mind the gap between the train and the platform edge" every 15 mins. Well duh!!
I could rant about this for ages and it appears standards differ between each TOC and Network Rail, but while there's morons, announcements will persist.

It amuses me when the automated Mind The Gap announcement is played at a small, unstaffed station, when the nearest train is about 5 miles away- that's quite a gap! Also, the "This station is a no-smoking area" announcements/notices that try to make out that the TOC has taken this action to selflessly keep us safe, rather than it being THE LAW. However that's nothing compared to the scoreboard announcements at Old Trafford that said "please be aware that from the 1st of July 2008, smoking will be prohibited in all areas of the stadium." This was in May 2011, so it's not just the railways that fall victim to it.

[Geo Ghost]

you forget about the massive number of spoon-fed morons that use our railways.

Here here! Fully agree with that.

To be honest, if someone is going to make a whole guardian 'news' post rant about station announcements then they should really start asking themselves questions.
If you travel a lot on the rail and don't want to listen to the announcements - then don't. Simple as that.
I never pay attention to them and only pick up the "platform 1/3 for the #### service to-". That's the only one I ever hear as I've got used to the others and never notice them
And hell, as for the baggage one... I live in Stevenage. There's no way in HELL I'm even letting go of my stuff let alone leaving it unattended!
Honestly though, if this David Marsh bloke really has the time to moan about something so insignificant when there's much bigger stuff going on... christ.

Personally, my favourite automatic announcement is "For your safety and comfort, this station operates a non-smoking policy". Not quite sure how the safety bit comes into that. Unless the rail-companies are trying to prevent lung cancer as well.

Top announcement of all time - (shouting) "Do Not ride your bike on the station as it's incredibly dangerous and bloody stupid! Yes, You! Get off it now!"

[audigex]

"Mind the gap" is unnecessary at most stations - people understand the concept of how to get into and out of trains. There are a couple where the gap is unusually large and it makes some sense, but again we're not complete morons.

Announcing stations after each stop makes sense: although does it really need to mention every stop on long rural lines? An information board can scroll through the whole list, and then announce maybe the next 5 after each station. If you're on a rural train, you're probably local or have planned your journey carefully.

Virgin do it badly: they never shut up with random announcements, but half the time I can't hear what station we're coming into and the information boards are hard to see. Northern do it the best out of all I've seen - probably because on the trains I get it's a real person who quickly reels off the stations at the start of the journey then after ever few stations, and announces the current stop a couple of minutes before we get there. THe only problem is that it can be variable as to whether you can hear it. TPE are the most consistent: easy to hear announcements which are mostly brief, easy to see information boards, and the conductor jumps in if extra information is necessary.

I look forward to the day when each seat has an information screen, linked to the national rail site, to look at exactly where they are check connections etc.

In the meantime, I suspect the author of that article is taking things a bit too seriously: "Nor have I met a single fellow passenger – sorry, customer – who does not find "arriving into" highly annoying, or worse" - I would really struggle to care any less.

[Kevo00]

Well, he's talking a load of rubbish about privatised railways introducing announcements. I remember them in BR days, so ner. It was they that also started calling passengers customers. I don't think the tone of announcements has changed particularly since then either.

Also, spare a thought for the traveller that doesn't know where they are going. Announcements can be extremely useful then. Particularly if you don't know the line. Also, since they started having them on buses in London its extremely useful so that you know when to get off if you are on an unfamiliar bus. People who take those transports every day can learn to ignore them. Frequent flyers shut out the safety instructions at the start of every flight after all...

Edit: I expect they also provide a lifeline for the blind....

[JamieLei]

To be fair with Vigin, the stops are rather infrequent so the heap of announcements of remaining stops doesn't occur very often. I remember in the very early days of the 350, I once got on an all-stations service from Birmingham New Street to International. The Robo-PIS insisted on listing off every remaining stop after every station, to the extent that 50% of the journey time was announcements.

London Buses are pretty good and bad. None of the faff of "The next station is...", just literally announcing things like "Charlie Brown's Roundabout!" out of the blue. Which severely cuts down on the amount of announcements, but at the same time makes them a bit difficult to hear if you're not used to them.

The best announcements I've found are brief bilingual announcements, ie: Stockholm, Kuala Lumpur, Barcelona. In both cases it's literally "Next station: (Station Name)" said first in the national language, and then another language (first two cases, English, Barcelona: Catalan then Spanish). If you missed it the first time, you can always hear it the second time since the actual pronunciation of the station doesn't change. Ie in Kuala Lumpur: "Stesen berikutnya, Taman Bahagia. Next Station, Taman Bahagia" and it takes about 2 minutes to learn that "Stesen berikutnya" means "Next Station". Of course, it doesn't always work such as in Helsinki where everything is announced in Finnish and Swedish, where the names are highly different, or where they do translate names (Osaka Bijinesu Paaku -> Osaka Business Park)

[Kevo00]

Yeah, its true that the prose could maybe be shortened. And you generally only need to announce the next station. Although the 350 time sounds like someone was trying out their new toy.

[andysine]

I was at New Street yesterday and I heard this; "The next train on Platform 8 is the 18:43 service to Lichfield Trent Valley. Passengers for the Take That concert at Villa Park should use Aston Station. Can passengers going to the concert please make sure they use all available doors; it only takes a minute."

Respect to that announcer, hehe!

[doktorhonig]

There's one particular subway driver in Vienna, who makes rather long but funny announcements, like "Dear passengers! This train is no advent calendar - you're allowed to open all doors simultaneously".

Here's a short (german) clip about him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBdWFLPz2T4

I've tried to translate the announcement from the beginning of the video clip:

"Dear passengers! If you sometimes get the impression, that the subway is constantly overcrowded, then simply try to enter it through one of the other seventeen doors. With increasing distance to the front of the train you will experience a decreasing state - or in other words - a spatial experience a if you were on a trekking trip in outer mongolia".

The fun thing is the "spoonerism" (I've looked that word up, hope it's right) of "increasing distance" and "decreasing state" which is "zunehmender abstand" and "abnehmender zustand" in German.

[61653]

Spoonerism is the correct word.

Or as google translate puts it back into German, "Verballhornung" (I didn't know this...)

[John]

I've heard a couple of good ones on German U-Bahns.

A long time ago on an S-Bahn the guard started doing intercity style announcements "Ladies and Gentleman, welcome aboard this intracity express service to XYZ. We are scheduled to arrive at "main station X" in 10 minutes and "other mainstation" in 15 minutes. The buffet car won't be open for service today as it has gone missing, and there are no toilets onboard. We hope you enjoy the journey".

More recently I was in Munich and pulled in to a station after a football match had finished.
"Ladies and Gentleman, this train has more holes in the side of it than <rival football team>'s defence. Please therefor make use of all of them so we can continue as quickly as possible"



(The actual German was this train has more goals then <rival football team> as door and goal use the same word in German)

[Jacko]

Top announcement of all time - (shouting) "Do Not ride your bike on the station as it's incredibly dangerous and bloody stupid! Yes, You! Get off it now!"

OH MY GOD! I remember hearing that! it was awesome.
LOL BMX kid got OWNED!!!!!

I remember once i was on a southern Train to Southampton and the in train announcement thingy made a staticy noise and then you just hear the conductor going, on the microphone (may the driver please contact the guard, we have a problem), was a bit eerie -_- Those Southern Announcement boards are always broken, just like the services themselves!

Also on the morons comment its annoying, ive seen people walk up to the conductor and ask "does this train go to Portsmouth?". Which is fine unless there's a humungous sign in bright green lights saying "PORTSMOUTH". which is just stupid. People like that should be made to learn to read again.

Ive seen that FGW Portsmouth - Cardiff dont have announcement, they just have some guy going "we are now approaching station x" and that's it. Simple.

[audigex]

My personal favourite was "Ladies and gentlemen, we're sorry for the delay: there is a cow on the line"

Looked forward along the train, and the conductor is leaning out of the window shouting "shoo" at a cow.

[Jacko]

thats awesome. but unfortunately for you the cow wasnt mooving

[Kevo00]

Not an announcement, but I once saw this sign on a District line train.

[Ameecher]

I think that that one is the work of some guy who made false stickers and stuck them up on various trains, particularly those in South London. I shall dig out the link...

[Geo Ghost]

Well it's good to try and entertain people a bit on the Tube. I found it good when the drivers would try to cheer up passengers on heavily delayed trains.

[Dave]

"Would the person in the blue jacket at the south end of platform 5 please extinguish their cigarette immediately."

Heard at Wolverhampton

... Also when West Brom made the Cup semi final, we all were awaiting the 0615 from Stour when the station staff - extremely rarely at the Junction - made a manual announcement saying the train was "to Wembley Stadium only", then played the Liquidator haha.

Heard a guard quote the railways act re: protection of guards.

Also this fella:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQNwBTlUK7g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar8y1T4D ... re=related

I've had him before... And this dude:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcTLHXyh0Fs

Oh and also an excellent moment where the driver himself came on between Clitheroe and Blackburn (cricket country) on the 27th June last year - notable as the day England lost to Germany and the day I got with Kate! - and said "in better news, I can confirm England have won by 8 wickets."

Excellent haha.